Grant: Grassroots Regular

Have you thought about how you can improve your teaching through the use of ICT? Do you have an idea for a project? A Grassroots grant can help you develop and implement this idea. Grassroots are small-scale, accessible grants for projects in which teachers and/or students experiment with an ICT application to enrich and improve education. Additionally, you will receive support in sharing knowledge and further adoption of your idea within the UvA.

Grassroots Regular offers:

• Budget: Depending on the project proposal, you will receive around €2,000 per project.
• Substantive and procedural support during your project.
• Didactic support for knowledge sharing and adoption after completion of your project.

Are you curious about previous projects? Check out the archive for projects themed AI, internationalisation, and flexible education.

View the archive

Criteria

Your idea must meet several criteria:

• Your idea focuses on improving education through an ICT application.
• Your idea may be entirely new or build on an existing application, but it must not be a repetition of a previous project. Therefore, we ask you to review current and previous Grassroots projects. If you’re still unsure whether your idea is too similar, please email Sjoukje at grassroots@uva.nl.
• You are willing to explore literature on similar cases.
• You must formulate a learning objective that contributes to your students’ learning process.
• If you are applying as a student, a lecturer must be associated with your Grassroots project.
• Will personal data be processed in your Grassroots project? Privacy and the correct processing of this personal data will be taken into account.

Procedure

• The Grassroots grant can be applied for annually. The application round for 2026-2027 ended on Friday, 29 January, 2027.
• The results will be announced in mid-March.
• If you are awarded a grant, you are expected to attend
  • the Innovation Festival on Thursday 1 April 2027, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m where both new and existing grant holders pitch their plans or results to each other.
  • the Innovation Community Drinks at Thursday 26 September 2027 in the afternoon.
• You will receive substantive and procedural support throughout your project.
• During your final evaluation, content will be collected for a one-off blog post about your project.

Use of the budget

May be used for

You can use the budget for costs that contribute directly to your Grassroots project and make it possible to experiment with ICT in education. This could include temporary support, the development or adaptation of teaching materials, or tools and services needed to develop, test and evaluate the application.

The costs must be in line with the project plan and budget that were submitted with your application.

May not be used for

The budget is not intended for costs that are not directly related to implementing the Grassroots project. Nor can the budget be used for activities or resources that are already funded as part of regular provision by the degree programme, the faculty or through central UvA funding.

Are you unsure whether an expense fits within your project? If so, please contact Sjoukje Kerman in advance.

Did you know that in addition to the Grassroots grant, there’s also Grassroots+? This grant is for lecturers who have previously innovated their teaching with a promising ICT application through an education grant. Are you such a lecturer and do you want to take this innovation to a larger scale within the UvA, so that other lecturers, programs, and/or faculties can benefit? Then the Grassroots+ grant is for you! This grant supports lecturers with a maximum of €9,000 to broaden the application of their innovative ICT projects. Read more about Grassroots+.

• Can I submit a proposal together with others?

Cooperation is encouraged. Grassrooters can learn a lot from each other and we like to see people who are working on the same educational innovation finding each other. This way, not every teacher or programme has to reinvent the wheel – or come up with new ideas separately. That is why we offer the possibility for several teachers to submit a proposal together. The requested budget is linked to the number of courses and/or programmes in which an innovation will be implemented. This way, you have more to spend and efforts can be shared.

• How much work can I expect?

Because a Grassroots project is only a small project, it is important to have a clear goal and a time schedule, and to make sure it is not too ambitious. The smaller and more concrete the Grassroots project is, the higher the chances of success. For individual Grassroots, it is recommended to carry them out within three months.

• How are the proposals evaluated?

Representatives of TLC form a selection committee. This committee evaluates the proposals according to the criteria indicated above.

• How is the Grassroots grant money disbursed?

Participants who have been awarded a Grassroots grant are paid into a ‘wbs’ number of the course/faculty. The costs of the Grassroots project can be claimed on this number. Students can claim the costs incurred on the declaration form ‘staff not in employment’.